


deprivation

by Flora_Obsidian



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: But Mostly Comfort, Couch Cuddles, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Cuddling, Touch-Starved, at least in the rest of the story, the first chapter is all hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-16 07:36:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flora_Obsidian/pseuds/Flora_Obsidian
Summary: For a long time, the sides merely coexisted. They never needed to do any more than that. But existing in a place with only three others, none of whom interacted beyond what they needed to be doing, caused more problems than one would expect.Inspired by @random-snippets Starved series on Tumblr, as well as a handful of other posts I will link to when I find them again.





	1. Chapter 1

Logan was not a foolish person. Rather, he was the diametric opposite to a foolish person; to be foolish was the antithesis to his very nature. Logic. _Logos_. Decisions based on reason and rational thinking.

And _that_ right there was the crux of the matter. The decisive or most important point at issue. Logan was not a foolish person. Logan knew _exactly_ why he so often felt so off-kilter. He could list studies to back his reasoning and subsequent conclusion; he could pull up numerous web pages and scholarly articles detailing symptoms and ways to combat them. But the problem here was based primarily in emotions, and so Logan, the purely _logical_ side of Thomas' mind, was at a loss as to how he should approach it.

Touch starvation, colloquially known as “skin hunger.” When a person was physically isolated from others. Effects could include, but were not limited to, heightened anxiety, heightened depression, feelings of loneliness, mental strain.

Logically, the solution was to ask for a hug once in a while, or to initiate physical contact himself more often.

Emotionally... no. Just. _Nope._ Hugs-- or any sort of touch, really-- carried with them varying levels of intimacy, no matter if they were sexual in nature or not, and Logan... didn't. Emotions were not things that could be predicted; he had no basis for how the other sides would react to requests for such, particularly since he was the one asking. He had no basis to explain _why_ he was asking; yes, he was dealing with touch starvation, and touch starvation on its own he could explain in great detail, textbook-perfect, but trying to put into words how it applied to himself...? They could react terribly, for all he knew, or _laugh_ , or worse-- simply _dismiss_ it as something not their problem--

...Those would be the thoughts resulting from heightened feelings of anxiety. Knowing that did not make the thoughts go away, or stop them from continuing to spiral, but they did not, at the very least, get any _worse_. Perhaps he would need to reevaluate his conversations with Virgil at a later date.

Sighing, Logan took off his glasses and pressed his hands against his face, keenly aware of the empty organization of his room around him. Other methods to combat touch starvation included hot baths or showers, or cuddling with something like a pet. There were no pets in the mindscape, but no one would notice if he borrowed a plush out of a memory. He could certainly tuck a heating pad inside a pillow. Hot showers and baths were easy things to come by.

He would be fine. There was always more than one solution to a problem. He would be... fine.

* * *

Roman knew it was... bad? Not-good? Mildly self-destructive?

...He'd settle on “not-good” for now. Ever-optimistic, that was him! The other two were such _dreary_ terms.

But sometimes he went out of his way to pick more dangerous and _exciting_ quests to embark on in Thomas' dreamscape, and it wasn't for the glory. And it _wasn't_ because he wanted to get hurt, that was-- well, there was a larger risk of him getting hurt, yes, but he was a _prince_. Princes always came back victorious! And sometimes, when he would come back, sweaty and muddy and triumphant, one of the other sides, or more than one of the others, would be up and about.

And _sometimes_ , especially if that one side happened to be Patton, they would want to check if he was okay, grab his arm, start fussing. It could be... annoying, yes, especially if the quest had been a long one and he wanted little more than _sleep_ , almost smothering, even, but--

\--but they were _touching_ him.

He didn't know what was _wrong_ with him, that made him so desperate for touch. _Any_ touch. All the other sides seemed perfectly fine with being all non-touchy-feely with one another. Mr. Pocket Protector, obviously, and Panic! At The Everywhere. Even _Patton_ , surprisingly enough, such a fluffy little human that Roman had yet to come up with a decent nickname. And then there was _him_ , the opposite of what a prince should be. Not brave and heroic and steadfast, but _craving_ something that no one else seemed to need.

Ugh.

...He was going to go on another quest soon. Maybe this weekend, after he'd finished helping Thomas with his next video. It would be fun.

* * *

So, it was _definitely_ the goofiness of the whole situation that made him do it.

Being Thomas' friends was so much _fun_! It was like acting, really, and they all did like to act, and they never really _needed_ to change how they manifested, so they never did! Doing new things was _great_. Besides, it...

...it had been a rough day, that day. Not a _bad_ day, but Patton was kinda tired (hi, Kinda Tired, I'm Dad), and kinda confused (didn't you just say you were Kinda Tired?), and all the switching and swapping about had just made him want to giggle dizzily.

_Why don't we talk more?_

Most of the time, whenever he tried to hug one of the other sides, they went all stiff and uncomfortable. And Patton, being Thomas' moral side, knew better than to push people's boundaries beyond what they were comfortable with, so he stopped! No more hugs. Even though, like any good dad, he gave great hugs. And even though he really liked them.

_Why haven't we thought to do this before?_

And _then_! Everyone had been having fun switching themselves about, and Thomas had been _right there_ , and Thomas liked hugs! Thomas liked hugs just as much as Patton did!

_I'm gonna hug you now!_

_No-- no, you go back over there._

Oh, well.

Patton smiled cheerfully, even though he didn't really feel too much like smiling. A short hug was _still_ a hug, after all.

* * *

Virgil wrapped his hoodie close around himself.

He wasn't a cuddly kind of person. At all. Especially with people he didn't trust.

 _Anxiety_ and _trust_ did not go well together. He didn't trust a lot of people. He didn't _know_ a lot of people-- four, really? Thomas and the other sides. Five if he felt like counting himself. Which he normally didn't.

_They don't actually like you._

_They only came looking for you because Thomas was having problems._

_Problems you caused--_

“Oh, just shut up,” he muttered to the empty air. Dark and emo his room might be, but it was still something constant. A good place to go for him when thinking got to be too exhausting.

This hoodie, the new hoodie, all big and soft and purple, it was... nice. It was even more comfortable than the old one, even, though it wasn't _quite_ on par with it. Clothes weren't really good until they were broken in, until they'd molded themselves to the shape of your body, until they were soft and faded from the number of times they'd been put through the wash.

And... it was like a hug, in a way. He wasn't a cuddly person, but if someone _asked_ , he wouldn't say no. Hell, he'd ask for one himself if it wasn't for a) speaking, b) speaking about emotions, and c) the lingering concern that the others were only tolerating him for Thomas' sake.

Hugs were... nice. Not that he'd ever really had one. Patton had, once or twice, but Virgil had yanked away since they'd come without warning-- just instinct when he was startled, but Patton picked up on it and stopped. None of the other sides were especially cuddly, either, and Virgil wasn't going to make them _and_ himself uncomfortable by broaching a subject that wasn't meant to be broached.

Besides, he was just anxiety. Not like he deserved hugs in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

The way it happened was like this:

In making more of an effort to include Virgil, the four sides spent a lot more casual time with one another. They interacted before, how _couldn’t_ they interact before, with all of them sharing the mindscape together? But they were only… acquaintances, co-workers, not exactly  _friends._ The sit-down dinners, the movie nights, the group brainstorming sessions where they all actually  _listened,_  all of those were new.

In spending more time with one another,  _not_ doing things that required them to solve dilemmas for Thomas, they found that they actually enjoyed one another’s company more than they had before. Logan didn’t have much of a sense of humor, and never had, but he started to appreciate Patton’s puns and dad jokes, given how they required near-instantaneous relating of words during conversation. Virgil was more gentle in voicing some of his concerns, trying to slide out of the role of villain that he had been acting in for so long, and he even smiled a little more often. Roman criticized and talked over the others less, and listened more. It was definitely stilted, more often than anyone was comfortable with, but they were doing all right.

In enjoying one another’s company, they actively sought out more time with one another. And the cycle continued.

The way it happened was like this:

It was another movie night; as it was Roman’s turn to pick, they were watching yet another Disney movie, but one of the ones the other sides had mentioned enjoying. He took careful mental notes whenever one expressed a preference and tried to incorporate them. Movie nights were hardly fun, after all, with only one out of four actually enjoying what was on screen. Patton was sprawled out across the couch in his cat onesie, taking up Roman’s recently evacuated space as well as any other room for either Logan or Virgil. This was fine for the latter two, since Logan had a mug of tea and a soft quilt over in his armchair, and Virgil was slowly walking back from the kitchen with a full mug of hot chocolate cupped in his hands to sit in his own chair.

Unfortunately, Patton had kicked a lot of the pillows off the couch in his endeavor to stretch out as much as he could, and Virgil tripped over one in his path that he didn’t see; he caught his balance quickly enough, but a considerable amount of his drink sloshed over the ceramic rim of the mug and onto the arm and cushion of his chair, dripping off his fingertips.

“Well.” He looked at the mess for a moment, two. “Shit.”

Roman glanced over from where he was setting up the DVD; Patton gasped, though at the curse or the spill, none of them were quite sure, and vaulted over the back of the couch, nearly startling Virgil into spilling more. “I’ll get paper towels!”

“…It isn’t a big problem,” said Logan after a hesitant pause, looking unsure of himself, unused to being the reassuring one, but seeing the way that Virgil’s shoulders were creeping up, how his posture had suddenly gone tense. “If we put enough towels down to soak up the worst, there are cleaning supplies around somewhere to take care of it after the movie.”

Virgil huffed, a short puff of air through his nose, but relaxed marginally all the same. “…Yeah,” he answered, and stepped aside when he heard the patter of Patton’s footsteps on the floor so the moral side could start cleaning, sticking his tongue out at Virgil when he tried to help. “And the floor’s not so bad, anyhow.”

“Nope!” Patton said brightly, shaking his head, folding up paper towels to put on the floor and cushions. “Nope, you can sit on the couch with us!”

“But–”

“Couch.”

Virgil looked taken aback, and shuffled on his feet. “There-– isn’t enough room-–?”

“Plenty of room!”

“I’m not–”

“Hi, Not! I’m Dad!”

Virgil looked at him. Roman, done setting up the DVD, grinned. Patton pointed to the couch.

Virgil sat on the couch.

Roman went to get the popcorn; Patton sat down next to Virgil, looked at the stretch of empty couch on his left, looked over his shoulder to where they could hear Roman, looked at Logan by himself over in his armchair.

“…We could all fit on the couch together!” he exclaimed, and clapped his hands together. It didn’t make much of a noise, given that his hands were inside the cat-paws of his onesie, but his excitement was plain.

Virgil curled around his hot chocolate almost protectively. Logan similarly curled around his tea, and there was a distant “What?” from the kitchen– but then he got up, careful not to spill his own drink, quilt around his shoulders, and settled on the far end of the couch from the other two, leaving plenty of room for the creative side between them.

Patton  _beamed_. When Roman came back, he said nothing, just turned the lights off, sat down with a bowl of popcorn large enough for the four of them, pressed play on the remote, and settled back.

This way it happened was like this:

The movie played, and the four of them started out in isolated sections of the couch, careful to leave empty space between them, Patton in his onesie, Virgil burrowed in his hoodie, Logan with his quilt, Roman with his snuggie.

Virgil finished his hot chocolate and moved to put the empty mug down on the side table. When he turned back to get resettled, he found himself closer to Patton than he meant to be, and froze– jerking away would come across as rude, but invading someone’s personal space was even  _worse_ , and what if Patton got upset-–? But Patton giggled as he watched Moana deal with the antics of her pet chicken, which meant he couldn’t be too upset, and Virgil stayed where he was, arm-to-arm with the other side, their knees knocking together.

Roman started to mumble  _agony_ under his breath in various keys about a third of a way through the film (his foot had fallen asleep), and continued to shift about until Logan told him to hush so they could all hear. This, of course, resulted in Roman nodding decisively and turning so that he was resting his head on Patton’s shoulder, shoving his feet into Logan’s lap in as deliberately invasive a movement as he could manage.

Logan, surprisingly, didn’t push him away except when he needed to move and put down his own empty mug.

The movie ended, and the credits rolled, and the four of them – quite comfortably settled in a tangle of limbs and blankets – realized the remote was out of reach on the table in front of them at about the same time.

None of them moved.

The silence stretched out to the point of becoming awkward.

“I can get the-–” Roman started at the same time as Patton:

“Can we stay like this? Please?” and finally Logan’s:

“I think we need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that it's relevant to the fic, but Roman chose _Moana_ to watch because Virgil mentioned liking it once (he amuses himself by comparing Roman to Tamatoa and, though he'll never admit it out loud, lowkey relates to that one scene with Te Fiti at the end).
> 
> This fic is also available on my Tumblr @floraobsidian


	3. Chapter 3

_“I think we need to talk.”_

There was another pause, longer than the first. Virgil pulled up his hood so he could sink back into the fabric, fiddling with the drawstrings, but otherwise didn’t try to leave. “…I’m too comfy to run away at social interaction. Yet.”

Logan took a deep, slow breath before letting it out. Yet, when he started to speak, he kept tripping over his words-– and that never happened. “Have you. Have you ever heard of–-? There’s.  _Ugh_.” Frustrated, he poked at Roman’s feet, still in his lap. “Touch starvation.”

“There’s a name for it?” Roman and Virgil asked at the same time, then turned to stare at one another. Patton, between the two, went wide-eyed.

“I thought you didn’t  _like_ hugs.”

“And that is  _precisely_  why we need to talk.” 

Logan paused, trying to gather his thoughts, his words. He didn’t want to stutter, but the feeling of warmth around him was near-overwhelming, making it hard to focus. “We may be manifestations of Thomas’s personality, with specific roles therein, but we are also our own unique individuals with our own needs, touch being one of them. But given… given how little we communicated, and for how long, we all assumed we were alone in needing such things and thus did not ask for them. I am the last to know how to begin to instigate heart to heart conversations-–” Virgil burrowed a little bit deeper into his hoodie, but still remained sitting with them. “–-but that does not change the fact that we do need to  _talk_.”

There was a considerable pause. Roman scrunched up his face, thinking.

“This… touch starvation, you called it?” he asked. Logan nodded. “We all… we’re all dealing with it, then?”

Logan nodded again. Patton was more uncertain, or perhaps his hesitation was from trying to move closer to one of the two sides next to him without either noticing; Virgil sighed, shrugged once, and at last nodded his own agreement.

“Because we all, erm… avoided… one another. For a while.”

“Precisely. These new levels of contact are unprecedented.”

“So… what do we do about it?” Patton was still sandwiched between Roman and Virgil, and he didn’t look especially inclined to move any time soon, but there was a note of concern in his voice.

“This,” Logan answered with a partial shrug, looking intently at the blanket covering Roman’s feet. Emotions were not and likely never would be one of his strong suits, but the importance of the conversation that they were having, and needed to continue having, outweighed any discomforts he felt. “It is… quite literally, it is a starvation of touch, as its name would imply. Ergo, the solution is more regular touch, either casual, such as a pat on the shoulder, or something more prolonged such as what we are doing n–-”

Virgil made a faint noise from where he had burrowed into his hoodie that rapidly grew and dissolved into  _giggling_ ; Roman sat up to look at him with alarm, nearly kicking Logan in the stomach for a second time in the process, and Patton turned to stare.

“ _Patton the shoulder_ ,” he finally gasped out, turning to hide what little of his face was left visible by his hood in the fabric of Patton’s onesie, quivering with laughter.

“No,” Logan said flatly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Patton exclaimed, gleeful, only to be interrupted before he had even really gotten the word out, Roman slumping back against him with a laugh. “Oof.”

“Shoulder,” Virgil whispered into the quiet, once they had all calmed enough, and then: “ _Shit_ , I’m not thinking straight.”

“None of us can think straight,” Patton shot back, and the giggling started right back up again.

“I would imagine that the sudden influx of touch, after a considerable period wherein it was absent, would have an impact on-–”

“Lo, get over here,” Roman sighed, swinging his feet out of the logical side’s lap, grabbing him by the arm, and tugging him abruptly into the pile. Logan flailed, tangled somewhat in his quilt, and ultimately found himself in close contact with the other three; Patton had wrapped his arm around Virgil, who had been prodded into putting his feet up so his legs were in Patton’s lap and verging into Roman’s section of couch; Roman was still leaning against him, but now Logan was in a similar state as Virgil, and it was at once all too much too quickly and exactly the thing they had been so desperate for.

The title screen for  _Moana_ played on a loop; the remote was still out of reach.

Patton said nothing when Virgil’s shaking from suppressed laughter turned into shaking of an entirely different sort and his shoulder started to grow damp; his own mind was struggling to focus on anything past the feelings of warmth, so unfamiliar– and if he let it sweep over him like he wanted to, he found himself blinking back tears as well. So instead he just leaned a little bit away from Roman and a little bit closer to the other side, resting his head on top of Virgil’s.

Roman-– twitched, for want of a better word, when Patton pulled away. He knew that something this good was too good to last forever. Stories and fairytales were eternal, moments like these were not. But he glanced over and saw Virgil and Patton curled around each other, and something twisted inside him, and he understood. He sat up completely, then, dislodging Logan to the point where he nearly rolled off the couch onto the floor, and stood up.

…The sudden  _lack_ of warmth was a near-palpable thing, and he actually found himself wobbling on his feet for a moment. Patton glanced up, unwilling to disturb Virgil, but Roman could see his concern past the dampness on his cheeks; Logan looked borderline offended.

“Blanket fort. So we can, um. Stay out here.”

The offended look cleared; Logan made a sound of recognition. “Sleeping alone would likely be distressing for everyone present.”

“Yeah.”

Patton glanced to Virgil, then back up again. “Hey, um. Logan. Blanket forts. You’re smart, so you could make them structurally sound?”

“Ah…” Logan blinked. “Yes?”

“So it’s your blanket  _forte_?”

Virgil made a noise that might have been a faint laugh. Logan’s expression softened.

“Precisely that.”

* * *

 

Moving into a pile of pillows and blankets took longer than it should have, only because the four of them kept finding excuses to bump into one another. Virgil wordlessly took a box of tissues to blow his nose and wipe his face with before going to help Roman get blankets for them all, but they wound up holding hands somewhere along the way and wouldn’t let go, making it a lot harder to carry things. Patton and Logan moved all of the pillows and cushions onto the floor, only to wind up sitting shoulder to shoulder in the middle of it all. And when everything was set up, all four of of them stood around and looked at it for several silent moments.

“What if,” Virgil mumbled, still buried deep inside the fabric of his hood, hands shoved into his pockets. “Uh. That thing that penguins do. So they don’t get cold. ‘Cause two of us are gonna be outside, which isn’t necessarily fair, and also colder, and can someone please stop me from talking before I continue on with this metaphor because I really need to  _stop_ –-” Patton hugged him from behind and gently put a hand over his mouth. “'Fanks.”

“Why do you know about the habits of penguins?” Logan asked, more out of habit than anything else. He was used to being the one providing trivia, regardless of the emotional turn the night had taken.

Virgil took Patton’s wrist to pull his hand away for a moment. “They’re cute and calm me down.”

“Penguins  _are_ cute,” Patton agreed. “Words later. Cuddle  _now_.”

“A novel idea.”

In the dark of the living room, it didn’t take the four of them very long to fall asleep, close enough together and wrapped in so many blankets it was hard to tell where one ended and another began. In the morning they would wake up, Patton’s glasses gone missing in the pile and Roman with such spectacular bedhead that Virgil started giggling yet again. Logan evidently couldn’t string more than two words together before his first cup of coffee, much to the collective amusement of the other three.

Logan got his coffee; Roman found a brush for his hair, and Patton found his glasses (thankfully not broken); Virgil cleaned the smudged eyeshadow from his face and shuffled off to start making breakfast.

Things were hardly perfect, and they never would be perfect. None of  _them_ were perfect, so nothing between them could ever be as well. But they were certainly better off than they were a day ago, better off than they ever had been.

And at least for that night, everything was, without a doubt, irrefutably  _good_.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks to all for reading, and I hope you enjoyed. Comments and kudos are much appreciated <3
> 
> For more writerly ramblings, come find me on Tumblr @floraobsidian


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